Some Recent Thoughts Of Mine About Mages

[musashi]

Desert elves and <redacted> everywhere are snickering at the idea that practicing magick over and over again in the same little hidey hole is "safe".

As compared to trying to skill up any other guild against the coded world ... yes this is "safe".
Desert elves and <redacted> are nice. I've been attacked while doing my isolated mage thing before under these circumstances, but it was pretty rare in my experience.

[Rokal]

Since we're going on thoughts here, i've some thoughts too I want to share, that bring up questions of mine.

As synthiesis said here:

Honestly, I'd prefer to have mages just hiding away solo-RPing in their camps or caves or temples or whatever, because it means 99.9% of the time I can go out and do my mundane shit without worrying about tripping over some goddamn magicker.


Why this line of thought? On my mundanes I'd rather enjoy tripping over said magicker. My character can be scared as such and solo mages that  are rogue are often dying for some sort of interaction, and its a RPI mud first and foremost.
To me this just seems like avoiding a potential interesting Rp situation - I just can't fathom why some players seem to treat the mage vs mundane situation as something that needs to -instantly- go towards coded combat or fighting. Death is common on armageddon, but I don't think it should come before some really good rp.
--
also, to desertmans post:

I actually can completely understand that sentiment as I had similar feelings towards a certain group of characters on a Rp a long time ago. Sometimes things can just be jarring to the way you see the world, and its okay to feel that way.

Look at magick in a way that isn't about the spells, look at the characters themselves, what they do, how they act.  Thats the real depth of mages, I'd like to think- that stigma against them, the fear and hatred of them, and what each individual mundane character SEEs in them. I mean, after all. We've got to remember that elementalists were all normal zalanthan people at one point until everything with gick-crazy for them.

The mundane vs gick/gemmers can have a lot of depth if you invest yourself into it, and it can create neat little plots all on its own.

I'm not saying mundanes should go and make buddies with gemmers and gicks, but I AM saying that there can be more interaction that, in my opinion - Interaction isn't necessarily association. Now of course, i'm not pointing at the mundanes preferring players in particular - i'm a NEW player to the game, 1 year a  tiny faction of the twenty years compared to desert man's. My experience with magick in the game is limited, but I think if you look beyond coded power and look at RP potential, things can be awesome.

That said it also relies on the player of said gicks to not go to coded spells first at the first sign of some conflict, as much as it relies on a mundane to not input 'kill gick' at first sight, from all my reading in the forums, all my searching through stories of the past, ect, it seems like often, a gick vs mundane encounter in the waste is treated like a hack and slash mud - but I could very well be wrong, but thats the general concesses I get.

As powerful as mages are? The best plots they can make have nothing to do with their power. But who and what they are as people - their power is simply like the extra shading to a picture and the final details. They aren't central to the character. Thats my thoughts on it. I'd like to hear what other people think on that approach to mundane/mage interactions or anything inbetween.

A mage brings to life a certain aspect to the game that can be roleplayed upon without ever typing 'cast' in a RP scene.

On the topic of griefers -- No matter what you do, griefers will grief. Its their play style, it doesn't matter if their a mage or not ,they'll find a way to grief, but in my experience in the game so far, the players kind of manage the griefers themselves very, very well, and few of them ever get very far.

-- adding-

On musashi's main topic, I'm not experienced enough with mages in general to really know if removing the nil reach would be a good thing, but my opinon so far - it'd force mages to find other means of practicing their spells, yes, and slow down their progression from that, but at the same time, I could see it having a lot of negative effects as well. Mages going around casting at everything they see, aggressive players being that much more aggressive. the Nil reach kind of tames the twinking mindset of a player - everyone has it to a degree, that desire to make a character stronger, to keep growing.

Now, the idea behind maintained/ceaseable spells? That sounds really cool.

[BadSkeelz]

Since we're going on thoughts here, i've some thoughts too I want to share, that bring up questions of mine.

As synthiesis said here:

Honestly, I'd prefer to have mages just hiding away solo-RPing in their camps or caves or temples or whatever, because it means 99.9% of the time I can go out and do my mundane shit without worrying about tripping over some goddamn magicker.


Why this line of thought?

We could (and have) had entire threads over why some of us dislike magick on a thematic or playability level. Not sure we need to have it here, in what's otherwise a pretty nice and clean and productive discussion on why some of their code and skill progression is bullshit questionable.

[Synthesis]

Since we're going on thoughts here, i've some thoughts too I want to share, that bring up questions of mine.

As synthiesis said here:

Honestly, I'd prefer to have mages just hiding away solo-RPing in their camps or caves or temples or whatever, because it means 99.9% of the time I can go out and do my mundane shit without worrying about tripping over some goddamn magicker.


Why this line of thought? On my mundanes I'd rather enjoy tripping over said magicker. My character can be scared as such and solo mages that  are rogue are often dying for some sort of interaction, and its a RPI mud first and foremost.
To me this just seems like avoiding a potential interesting Rp situation - I just can't fathom why some players seem to treat the mage vs mundane situation as something that needs to -instantly- go towards coded combat or fighting. Death is common on armageddon, but I don't think it should come before some really good rp.
--
also, to desertmans post:

I actually can completely understand that sentiment as I had similar feelings towards a certain group of characters on a Rp a long time ago. Sometimes things can just be jarring to the way you see the world, and its okay to feel that way.

Look at magick in a way that isn't about the spells, look at the characters themselves, what they do, how they act.  Thats the real depth of mages, I'd like to think- that stigma against them, the fear and hatred of them, and what each individual mundane character SEEs in them. I mean, after all. We've got to remember that elementalists were all normal zalanthan people at one point until everything with gick-crazy for them.

The mundane vs gick/gemmers can have a lot of depth if you invest yourself into it, and it can create neat little plots all on its own.

I'm not saying mundanes should go and make buddies with gemmers and gicks, but I AM saying that there can be more interaction that, in my opinion - Interaction isn't necessarily association. Now of course, i'm not pointing at the mundanes preferring players in particular - i'm a NEW player to the game, 1 year a  tiny faction of the twenty years compared to desert man's. My experience with magick in the game is limited, but I think if you look beyond coded power and look at RP potential, things can be awesome.

That said it also relies on the player of said gicks to not go to coded spells first at the first sign of some conflict, as much as it relies on a mundane to not input 'kill gick' at first sight, from all my reading in the forums, all my searching through stories of the past, ect, it seems like often, a gick vs mundane encounter in the waste is treated like a hack and slash mud - but I could very well be wrong, but thats the general concesses I get.

As powerful as mages are? The best plots they can make have nothing to do with their power. But who and what they are as people - their power is simply like the extra shading to a picture and the final details. They aren't central to the character. Thats my thoughts on it. I'd like to hear what other people think on that approach to mundane/mage interactions or anything inbetween.

A mage brings to life a certain aspect to the game that can be roleplayed upon without ever typing 'cast' in a RP scene.

On the topic of griefers -- No matter what you do, griefers will grief. Its their play style, it doesn't matter if their a mage or not ,they'll find a way to grief, but in my experience in the game so far, the players kind of manage the griefers themselves very, very well, and few of them ever get very far.

-- adding-

On musashi's main topic, I'm not experienced enough with mages in general to really know if removing the nil reach would be a good thing, but my opinon so far - it'd force mages to find other means of practicing their spells, yes, and slow down their progression from that, but at the same time, I could see it having a lot of negative effects as well. Mages going around casting at everything they see, aggressive players being that much more aggressive. the Nil reach kind of tames the twinking mindset of a player - everyone has it to a degree, that desire to make a character stronger, to keep growing.

Now, the idea behind maintained/ceaseable spells? That sounds really cool.

Yes, it's an RPI, but it's an RPI where magick is supposed to be relatively rare.  A lot of us played through the days where you couldn't go a single damn login (as a ranger, anyway) without some magicker wandering by and either demanding something or wasting your time being annoying and "spooky."  Sure, I like to RP, but sometimes, I just need to kill a couple of scrabs and craft the shit into breastplates so I can pay my fucking rent.

Imagine if every time you logged in, a pickpocket stole your mount ticket.  Or every time you logged in, you had to spend 30 minutes of that time being interrogated by a templar (after which they might take all the shit you just spent an hour grebbing).  There's a point at which a particular type of interaction crosses the line from "interesting" to "fucking annoying."

[Rokal]

Since we're going on thoughts here, i've some thoughts too I want to share, that bring up questions of mine.

As synthiesis said here:

Honestly, I'd prefer to have mages just hiding away solo-RPing in their camps or caves or temples or whatever, because it means 99.9% of the time I can go out and do my mundane shit without worrying about tripping over some goddamn magicker.


Why this line of thought?

We could (and have) had entire threads over why some of us dislike magick on a thematic or playability level. Not sure we need to have it here, in what's otherwise a pretty nice and clean and productive discussion on why some of their code and skill progression is bullshit.

I'm not sure where my question came across as asking for a rant. It was a simple question!   Feel free to PM about it if you want to share your thoughts on it, if you want to avoid it on this topic.

[Jeax]

In faith, I do not love thee with mine eyes,
they in thee a thousand errors see.
But 'tis my heart who loves what they despise,
who in despite of view is pleased to dote.

[The Silence of the Erdlus]

Elves.

That is all

[wizturbo]

The Nil Reach

As others have said, the Nil reach is sort of a necessary evil.  I would personally prefer that "un" spells have a much higher probability of offering skill gains over "nil", so that actually using a spell for a real purpose teaches more than just saying the words, but I don't view it as particularly high priority to fix.

The Economics Of Component Crafting

I'd like some of the prices on certain components to be greatly reduced, and others greatly increased.  Being able to find some common material and make a component that's worth 200 sid to an NPC without haggling shouldn't be possible, but selling a rare component for 500 should be given how difficult they can be to make.  As for your comment about people who can travel quickly between settlements...I kind of think that's just realistic.  In a world where travel is dangerous, being able to do so quickly should be a source of significant wealth...just because you can do that with magick doesn't mean the magicker shouldn't be rich if they want to be as a result.  If you play a magicker long enough though, you'll quickly learn that being rich means practically nothing, because you have no political power or social status.  You can buy cool shit from the merchant houses...but they probably won't prioritize selling to you.  Good luck getting a special order...  So, in my experiences, I never really pursued getting a fat bank account as a mage.  Perhaps other people have different experiences though.

[bardlyone]

Yes you can't craft without a subguild but neither can most mundane guilds ...

False. Pickpocket is the only mundane guild that doesn't have at least 1 crafting skill other than cooking. Some have 2-3. Some have lots.

[musashi]

As others have said, the Nil reach is sort of a necessary evil.  I would personally prefer that "un" spells have a much higher probability of offering skill gains over "nil", so that actually using a spell for a real purpose teaches more than just saying the words, but I don't view it as particularly high priority to fix.

Not having the nil reach would make waiting for spell buffs to time out rather annoying and debilitating to play. I think that was a good point, and I wish there was a way to cancel buffs you cast on yourself at will.

I'd like some of the prices on certain components to be greatly reduced, and others greatly increased.  Being able to find some common material and make a component that's worth 200 sid to an NPC without haggling shouldn't be possible, but selling a rare component for 500 should be given how difficult they can be to make.

If the component is valuable for its mundane properties (it's made of emeralds, metal, whatever) then I agree it should be valuable. If it's a ratty pair of boots that just also happens to serve as a powerful component because magick reasons, then I don't think mundane merchants should be paying high prices for it. It may be rare and important ... to mages ... who use it for magick ... but it shouldn't come off as particularly rare or valuable to a raw materials shop keeper who is not, and won't. And if they knew what it was would probably kick you out their store.

As for your comment about people who can travel quickly between settlements...I kind of think that's just realistic.  In a world where travel is dangerous, being able to do so quickly should be a source of significant wealth...just because you can do that with magick doesn't mean the magicker shouldn't be rich if they want to be as a result.

I agree. But I would rather the mages be transporting things more in line with the gameworld economy. I once played a whiran who made quite a bit of money air dropping spice into the rinth for example.

 If you play a magicker long enough though, you'll quickly learn that being rich means practically nothing, because you have no political power or social status.  You can buy cool shit from the merchant houses...but they probably won't prioritize selling to you.  Good luck getting a special order...  So, in my experiences, I never really pursued getting a fat bank account as a mage.  Perhaps other people have different experiences though.

Eh ... I hear that said a lot on the GDB ... I've never found it to be particularly true. Leader types have historically been strapped for cash to make things happen and at the very, very minimum, your money buys you tolerance because you're their golden goose. But I've always found it to be far more useful than that. Again for example, same whiran ... found out there was a hit out on a friend of his. He immediately paid said assassin four times the amount, and said assassin betrayed and killed the person who put out the hit instead. I've always found far more useful applications for coin than buying mastercraft items.

[musashi]

Yes you can't craft without a subguild but neither can most mundane guilds ...

False. Pickpocket is the only mundane guild that doesn't have at least 1 crafting skill other than cooking. Some have 2-3. Some have lots.

Perhaps the context of that wasn't clear. I was referring to the economic crafting skills. Not the nitche crafting skills that go along with your profession like make lock pick/fletchery/etc.

Using those as examples of guilds with crafting skills would render the point I was making to Palehorse about mages not having any false ... because component crafting.

[FantasyWriter]

I enjoy playing mages very much.  They probably amount to 60+% of the characters that I have played since having the karma granted to do so.

I highly support either lessening nil's ability to level-up spells or eliminating nil in exchange for the ability to "break" spells (on your own person only) for any magick guild/subguild.  I would find the later preferable.  As stated above, it seems that nil only exists for OOC convenience.  If there is a spell your PC has a damn good reason not to cast, they shouldn't be casting it, period.  Using a skill that you don't need IG in order to branch from it annoys the piss out of me, and it seems that nearly every elementalists has one or two useless spells (usually one of your newb spells) that simply isn't useful for survival, which in my opinion is what 98% of commoner PCs should be focusing on.
A certain Krathi spell that you start out with pops to my mind.  Most of my PCs would never use it, but that's what we have to work with, but I've always believed that the branches from which spells progress make a great deal or sense when you look at what the spells actually do (the effect) and how they do it (the symbols), so I don't really see a good alternative to working around this

Someone has already said it, but the way magick is viewed in the game, leaves you with little choice but to try and advance your character to a solo-survivable point unless you ICly prefer to remain as low key and involved with other PCs as possible.  When hide, die, or overpower your foes are your only choices... what's a 'gicker to do?

Anyway, I agree that 'nil' is too easy and should either be nerfed or removed from the game and replaced with a more IC-appropriate convenience tool.  i.e. >break glowing wetness



Components:  Foragable/skin-able  -junk- that has not required some form of effort from the component-crafting gicker should be set to a value of < 10.  Foragable/skin-able junk that has had some effort put into it through the crafting skill should have a very low value < 40-50.  Very rare or complicated/multi-step components... leave them where they are, or increase their value (some of these items seem EXTREMELY low compared to forageable rock #724).

[musashi]

Components:  Foragable/skin-able  -junk- that has not required some form of effort from the component-crafting gicker should be set to a value of < 10.  Foragable/skin-able junk that has had some effort put into it through the crafting skill should have a very low value < 40-50.  Very rare or complicated/multi-step components... leave them where they are, or increase their value (some of these items seem EXTREMELY low compared to forageable rock #724).

I've never been concerned with how hard they are to make having any bearing on their value in the mundane economy. To me it's always made more to sense to just base it off what they are. For example (these are totally made up):

If you're taking a thick baobab branch, and a mantis leg, and crafting it into ... a mantis leg flopping around atop a thick baobab branch ... ... I'm thinking the shop keepers should probably give you the ole   then tell you to get the fuck out of their store.

If you're crafting a purple salt crystal and a sliver of bone into a tiny bone dagger with a purple salt pommel ... then ... shop keepers should probably pay you whatever they would pay a guild merchant for making the same sort of dagger.

If you're crafting a ruby, an emerald, a diamond, and an ignot of gold into a bejeweled gold scepter of fuck yo mama ... by all means ... let the obsidian coins rain down upon you.

... although personally ... if it was entirely up to me ... I would prefer it if all of the component crafting recipes did nothing but attune an item that was already made. So a mage wouldn't craft a dagger from the purple salt crystal and bone ... a merchant would, and the mage's crafting effort would just be about turning the mundane dagger into a magickal component. Some of the recipes are like that, some aren't, I'd rather they all were but ... meh ... there's a lot in game and it would be painful to go through and redo them.

But it's just always seemed a little silly to me having to explain away awkward things like:

"So you can make knives huh?"
"Kind of yeah."
"Well can you make me a knife with some obsidian?"
"No I can make one out of bone with a purple salt crystal though."
"... Err ... how about a red salt crystal?"
">_> No. Just a purple one."
"... ... what about just the bone, no crystals at all?"
"... ... NO. Just a purple one."

[FantasyWriter]

That the same line of thinking I was following. A ragged piece of cloth (MON DOOM SPELLS) that you -dug up- over in Steinal should not be worth more than the diamond dildo of doom (WEK WEEWEE SPELLS) that you was actually -made-.  Also, I don't think any store in Allanak outside the gicker's quarter should deal in magick components (unless they are useful as something else such as your purple salt dagger, for example).  The shop/s that do do this make sense in some ways (mostly OOC reasons and code issues), but ICly it doesn't seem like the templarate would approve of Billy Joe Bob ranger selling the ragged pieces of cloth from Steinal  in an open market when they are known to be 300 coin-a-piece MONDOOMSPELL components.

[whitt]

I can imagine there'd be at least one -real- good reason why the Templarate might allow a shopkeeper out the Quarter to buy up components.  Or well, maybe two.

[FantasyWriter]

Buy, maybe... resale to anyone who happens along, not so much.

More merchants should buy shady things but make it very hard/expensive to purchase them.
A certain Rinthi basement comes to mind.

[Majikal]

Magickers branch fast for players that want to branch them fast. People that play the casual gick that casts only when they need to, they branch about the same time as I branch out a hard grind combat class.

I don't see much wrong with this, they can hide away and train secretly. Your warrior can hide away as a Tor guard and train safely. Hell, there's safe and secluded ways to play all the classes to badassdom if you put in the effort. Mages suck until they branch, they're damn near unplayable skillwise UNTIL they branch, this is true with all of the mage classes. Meanwhile, there are a tons of dangers and drawbacks to playing a mage, I've seen plenty enough get stomped out from pc to pc violence within hours of chargen.

[Inks]

That is an actual lie. If you have a rogue that barely casts you will branch 3rd tier within 12 days played.

A warrior will likely never branch advanced weapon skills fighting other humanoids apart from dangerous gith.


Edit: Unless you are seriously abusing the code.

But I 100%agree with you that mages are much more vulnerable day 1. But they can just hide in the temple/cave and they will be Irenicus in no time.

[Synthesis]

That is an actual lie. If you have a rogue that barely casts you will branch 3rd tier within 12 days played.

A warrior will likely never branch advanced weapon skills fighting other humanoids apart from dangerous gith.


Edit: Unless you are seriously abusing the code.

But I 100%agree with you that mages are much more vulnerable day 1. But they can just hide in the temple/cave and they will be Irenicus in no time.

You don't -need- advanced weapon skills to be utterly badass as a warrior.  In fact, I'd guess that no PC warrior -ever- (who wasn't staff-modified) has actually been "better" with an advanced weapon skill than they were with the weapon skill they branched it from.

The relevant stat for warriors is how fast you can max parry...and yeah, that happens anywhere from 5-12 days, depending on your wisdom and your flavor of grind.  You can't compare grinding weapon skills to grinding any other skill in the game, because they're in a class by themselves.

[Inks]

You can't parry a one shot doom spell.

[ibusoe]

You can't parry a one shot doom spell.

I think I can help with this a bit.

For starters, would most of the players posting here agree that it's generally inappropriate for the magical classes to go around blasting 0-karma characters willy-nilly?  I feel that most people would agree that's uncool.

Next question, does this happen frequently enough to people that they consider it a problem?  This is where I'm personally unclear.  It hasn't happened to me in a while, but just because it's not a problem for me doesn't mean it's not a problem for other people.

Follow-up question, and this one will generate the interesting responses - If mages blasting red shirts *is* a problem, what is it that the magical classes should be spendibeng their time doing rather than simply PKing people?  I can imagine some people having the view that their role as a krathi is to be enforcing the will of the rich and powerful by taking hits on on some of the more dangerous characters, typically high-level warriors or what have you.  How should they be contributing to the game *rather* than murdering people?

[manonfire]

Blasting the hell out of people is one of the most enjoyable parts of playing a magicker. It's downright orgasmic if the PC has a shitbutt attitude.

[FantasyWriter]

I have never PKd using magick. I have never attacked another players character with magick unless attacked first.
I would have to assume that the amount of magicker on mundane attacks is greatly overshadowed by mundane on magicker attacks.

Honestly, I'd prefer to have mages just hiding away solo-RPing in their camps or caves or temples or whatever, because it means 99.9% of the time I can go out and do my mundane shit without worrying about tripping over some goddamn magicker.

I've tried this before, but as mentioned above, as soon as the mundanes find out about a rogue gicker frequenting a certain location, they will come after you and then bitch about it when said gicker wipes the floor with their character.

[Pale Horse]

You can't parry a one shot doom spell.

I think I can help with this a bit.

For starters, would most of the players posting here agree that it's generally inappropriate for the magical classes to go around blasting 0-karma characters willy-nilly?  I feel that most people would agree that's uncool.

Next question, does this happen frequently enough to people that they consider it a problem?  This is where I'm personally unclear.  It hasn't happened to me in a while, but just because it's not a problem for me doesn't mean it's not a problem for other people.

Follow-up question, and this one will generate the interesting responses - If mages blasting red shirts *is* a problem, what is it that the magical classes should be spendibeng their time doing rather than simply PKing people?  I can imagine some people having the view that their role as a krathi is to be enforcing the will of the rich and powerful by taking hits on on some of the more dangerous characters, typically high-level warriors or what have you.  How should they be contributing to the game *rather* than murdering people?

I can't really comment with any factual information about the number of times Mage on Mundane Pking is happening, as the game stands right now.  I think it is more lingering resentment about having had a character magickgibbed in the past without the chance to fight back that generates most of the complaints.  Again, though, I have no facts to back this up.

Some of the ways a mage could quickly kill you were a bit ridiculous, yeah.  If musashi is referencing the same whiran that I think he is, I just want to congratulate him on being one of those players who I know took their time to explore the abilities of the guild and then tell Staff what they thought was a bit on the twinkish side even for magick.  I know Staff has addressed the concern by switching around karma requirement levels, altering the parameters of spells and even putting in code to prevent some of the ganking ability from happening to a city-bound character to be more in line with IG realities.

[Synthesis]

You can't parry a one shot doom spell.

This is Armageddon, not Paper-Rock-Scissors.

Your complaint was regarding the speed at which various classes get to their useful/powerful state.

My point is that warriors and mages take about the same amount of time to get to a useful state, not that at 12 days played, a warrior will have a 50-50 chance vs. a 12 day magicker.

(Due to the way the skillgain timer works,  you -can- branch a mage much, much faster by using ONE WEIRD TRICK--WARRIORS HATE HIM, but it's kind of lame and the RL time it takes works out to nearly the same, regardless of the days' played counter.)